


The Master of Novices

by KnightRepentant



Category: Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Coruscant, Gen, Jedi Temple, Order 66, Post-Order 66
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-03
Updated: 2017-09-03
Packaged: 2018-12-23 13:41:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11990985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KnightRepentant/pseuds/KnightRepentant
Summary: When Order 66 comes down and the clones are laying siege to the Temple, a young Padawan gathers any of the younglings he can find, to lead them to safety. But this is Coruscant, heart of the fallen Republic, of the triumphant new Empire. There are no safe places to go. And he is alone.





	The Master of Novices

**Author's Note:**

> These are just snippets I did for fun, if I have the time I might make something more out of them.

' **Coruscant Skyline** '

The figure standing at the window, gazing out at the endless cityscape, was not a frequent sight in the Tranquillity Spire. The deep hood of his robe was pulled low enough that it completely covered his eyes, or it would have if any eyes existed. Only the lower half of his face was visible, showing a narrow jaw, a shadow of stubble and a mouth seemingly locked in constant melancholy. Beneath the hood, deep brown hair tumbled to his shoulders save for his Padawan braid, which reached well past his collarbone. Beyond the flawless transparisteel, thousands of bright lights soared in neat lines across the skies of Coruscant, an infinity of souls sped on their way. He saw them only as glittering points of Force energy, while the dead metal of the skyscrapers remained hidden. He felt the presence of another well before the muted hum of repulsorlift generators reached his ears, and a kindly voice spoke from the doorway,

                “Still awake, you are.”

                “I’m sorry, Master Yoda, I could not sleep. I meant no disrespect.” The aged Jedi Master came to hover beside the young man,

                “In troubling times we find ourselves, Chasin, more than a handful of Jedi still walk the halls I think.” The watcher remained still, his sleeves hiding his clasped hands,

                “I do not dream, Master. Not since the beginning of this war.” Yoda frowned in thought and worry,

                “None do. Clouded have our dreams become, hidden, by the dark side of the Force.”

                “But I am glad that you defended my decision,“ the youth turned his head but a fraction, "to remain on Coruscant.” The old master shrugged,

                “Unusual, your request was. Eager to escape the Temple, most apprentices are.” Chasin returned his gaze to the vista, but his thoughts were yet elsewhere,

                “With respect, Master, we have enough Jedi Generals out there. My kind fought before, against the ancient Sith Empire. We paid for that with Katarr.” The hood turned again to Yoda, “My place is here, where I am most useful. The tasks of a Jedi Knight do not include looking after children still with the dust of travel on their boots.” Yoda allowed himself a brief smile; it was true Chasin excelled at helping apprentices acclimatise to the vast and intimidating Temple. His undemanding and soft-spoken demeanour balanced the distant Jedi Knights and Masters, who bestowed on him the unofficial title of 'Master of Novices’. True, the Padawans might spend more time playing games and ransacking their dormitories, while Chasin tinkered obliviously with some gadget in a corner, than meditating, but the lessons went much better for it. They remained in silence for a time, each buried in their own thoughts, then Chasin’s voice came as little more than a breath, “Something is coming, Master. A storm or worse. I find myself holding my breath for no reason. Force Sight or no, I feel it.”

                “How right you were, my young Padawan,” Yoda murmured to himself as Bail Organa’s speeder soared away from the Senate building, where the newly-crowned Emperor celebrated his victory.

                “Are you all right, Master Yoda?” Was the Senator’s concerned query, which he then amended with, “My apologies, it was a foolish question, considering all that has happened.” But Yoda did not appear to notice,

                “My apprentice, Chasin ni Tandelar. A Miraluka, he was.” The blackened bulk of the Jedi Temple, its halls and passages aflame and strewn with the dead, stared unseeing at him, “What he saw, even I could not.” Yoda’s words seemed not for Bail’s hearing, and a terrible note of pain now soured them, “my last apprentice.”  

                “Does he yet live?”

                “Certain, I am not. Like searching for a single ember, it would be, amidst a pyre. All these souls… are burning.” The speeder roared away.

                Another explosion rocked the Temple. Without that dreadful rumble, the view from the Council chamber might almost be peaceful, even if it were not the view most people saw. In the shining halls below, brown-robed figures watched in horror the advancing troopers, troopers led by a dark, hooded warrior. Jedi Knights clashed with the traitorous clones, their lightsabres slicing through pristine white armour. The clones responded with pinpoint blaster fire. But like the copse suffering beneath the hurricane, the Jedi were being felled one by one, helpless against the weight of the numbers arrayed against them, to say nothing of the dark-clad figure scything through them with all the efficiency and emotion of a laser drill. To the young man looking out at the cityscape, every Jedi death screamed out to him in a blaze of pain, the howl of the Force as another soul was ripped from existence, and so he kept his gaze on the glittering tapestry of life that was Coruscant, while the slaughter of the Jedi played out beneath his feet. The four Padawans he had been able to find were crouched behind the chairs in which the Jedi Council were normally seated, wide-eyed and silent.

                        They could not stay here.  _What does_ here _even mean at this point? Coruscant? The entire Republic?_  Well, neither of those would matter if they could not escape the Temple. His spirit shrank away from the notion of leading a group of terrified children through the clone-infested corridors. And the Sith who led them…he knew who it was, yet drew no comfort from the knowledge. Chasin ni Tandelar was far from weak in the Force, yet he was still no match for… _that_. He had to think and precious little time to do so. The clones would scour every hall, search every corridor to find and murder every last Jedi in the Temple, but they could be evaded.  _A Sith as powerful as Skywalker, however, is another matter_. He _can see us through the Force, a Miraluka and four Padawans must seem as a radiant sun atop this tower_. It would accomplish little to escape the Temple only to be hunted across Coruscant as Jedi fugitives. Yoda’s final instructions had been clear,

                “Your charges, you must protect, Chasin, from whatever darkness, seen you have.”’

“Master Tandelar?” The Miraluka quickly erased the grief and pain from his face before turning to the speaker, Janni, a twelve-year-old girl in pale Padawan robes, “Master, what is happening?” Her voice was steady, but her eyes were wide and shining, terrified but too proud to show it,

                “The clones…they are attacking the Temple.” The little huddle was very quiet; four worried faces begged him for reassurance. Janni spoke again,

                “There are too many, Master. And…”

                “Tell me,” Now her voice began to quaver,

                “I sensed…something. Like the Force was on fire. And anger, terrible anger.” Her uncertainty, it seemed, frightened her the most. Chasin sighed,

                “You are a step ahead of me, Janni; I was loath to speak of him. There is a…a dark Jedi leading the clones. He is very powerful, powerful enough to sense other Jedi, which is why we cannot linger here.” The notion of a ‘dark’ Jedi did not sit well with the Padawans, and it took some time and a great deal of patience for Chasin to make himself heard again, “This tower isn’t safe; the clones  _will_ search here for us eventually.” He looked around at four frightened faces, “The corridors will be very dangerous, so everyone will need to be very careful and quiet. If you see anything, you mustn’t cry out, just let…I’ll handle it, okay?” The Padawans nodded fervently, Chasin crossed the chamber to the turbolift, the younglings following close enough to tread on the hem of his cloak. He punched the call panel and a distant rumble began far below. He felt a tugging on his sleeve and turned his head to see Janni clutching tightly at the rough cloth with trembling hands, “I need you to be brave, Janni. If you can be brave, the others will be as well.” The small girl bunched her fists, and nodded,

                “You as well, master?” Chasin managed a brief smile,

                “Yes, Janni, I…” His head whipped around, the turbolift was not arriving empty, “Get out of sight, go!” He hissed, and the younglings scrambled into a shadowed recess out of sight of the lift doors. Chasin flattened his body against the wall immediately right of the lift, and slid his lightsabre from his sleeve. When the turbolift purred to a stop, the doors parted and two brown-robed figures stepped out, peering around the gloomy chamber. Chasin leapt at the nearest figure and cyan light washed over the chamber as his lightsabre activated. The first stranger never had the time to look around before Chasin sliced off their head. The second managed a yell of surprise before the Miraluka whirled, his turquoise blade cutting diagonally through the spine, heart and lungs. With a gasp the stranger collapsed, in two different directions. Janni emerged from hiding with a mortified stare,

                “Master, they were Jedi! Wh…”

                “No they weren’t,” said Chasin coldly, he flipped open the robes on the headless body with one foot, revealing the armour of a clone trooper, “They’re a dirty trick, a foul and underhanded deception. However, robes alone cannot fool the Force, or one who sees through it, but we have lingered here for too long.” The five young Jedi crowded into the turbolift, and Chasin pressed the panel for the very lowest floors. The doors glided shut and they were plunged downwards, down to the darkest passages of the Temple.

 

\--

 

' **Reconciliation** '

Chasin ni Tandelar stood at the railing, his old Jedi cloak pulled close about him, watching the traffic speeding by. He tensed as she approached,

               “You cannot get your rest standing there, Janni. But I know better than to ask you to leave.” His voice was hushed, almost as if he were talking to himself. A flash of pity stung her heart, she savoured it; a Sith had pity for no-one.

               “You know why I came here, tonight?” The Miraluka turned his hooded face to hers,

               “I imagine you have questions, about our…disagreement.” It pained him to speak of it, she knew, the set of his jaw, the tightness in his lips and the huddled stance told of a man screaming inside.

               “No, the less said about it the better. It’s over.”

               “Over?” Chasin’s hushed tones had hardened, and grown cold, “I came within a hair’s breadth of losing one of my apprentices, losing you, to darkness and you mean to pretend it was nothing?! That our crossing blades was a simple disagreement?! Do you know how terrified I was to see such…such  _rage_  in you?” Janni felt her eyes moisten, her master had never looked so… _old_. Yet there he was, hunched and frail, a young man forced to grow up very quickly in the years since the Temple fell. “And, when you disarmed me, when I felt your sabre’s heat at my throat, I could think only of the duty given to me to keep you safe. I failed Yoda, I failed all of you!”

               “You haven’t failed, master. You saved me. You brought me back.” Janni bowed her head and turned to leave, “I am sorry, master, for the pain I have caused you.”

               “What are you…? Wait!” She stopped, “Don’t…please don’t leave. I need…” Chasin’s voice cracked, “…someone.” Janni turned back to him, twisting her braid between her fingers,

               “Of course, master.” Chasin sank onto his pallet,

               “I have been a fool, Janni. The Jedi were wise when they decreed that a master may take only one apprentice at a time. On your own, you have given me enough trouble for a lifetime and yet I have three other younglings running around my feet, three others that I must protect not only from the Sith we know, but from the Sith any of them might become.” Remaining where she was, Janni allowed a flicker of humour into her voice,

               “You are not a master yet, um…master.” A smile tugged briefly at the corner of Chasin’s mouth,

               “Nor likely to ever become one, I think. Come,” The Miraluka rose from his bed, “I am loath to leave the younglings to their own devices for too long.” His hand felt heavy upon Janni’s shoulder, “I know there is more to be said, but difficult words should be taken like medicine, in small doses.” Chasin’s smile was tentative, yet so fragile, “My mother’s wise words.” Her heart skipped for an instant, for Chasin rarely spoke of his parents, since they'd learned of the fate that befell Alpherides. Janni gently placed her own hand upon his shoulder, fearful of him shattering under the weight, but finally could restrain herself no longer, and pulled him into a tight embrace. Shock paralysed him for an instant, and then she felt his arms lock around her shoulders. There were no words, no thoughts. The Miraluka’s body shook within her embrace, while tears traced a shining trail down her cheek.

 

\--

 

' **What Waits in the Deep** '

There had been silence for a long time from the room in the back. It was an oppressive quiet that weighed upon the younglings in the main chamber, some unseen fog creeping around the edges of Chasin’s door. The hum of the air conditioning was hollow and muted. The children fidgeted where they sat, trying to distract themselves with games or holo-books, but Janni saw their eyes each darting to the door as the minutes dragged past. Finally she could bear it no longer.

The air around the door pressed in upon her, raising the hairs on her arms in a sudden chill. Janni raised her hand to the chime. Its tone rang loud in the silence. The door eventually slid open. Across the room, the broad window showed her the heavy evening traffic of Coruscant’s lower wards. Between them, the single bulb shone stark white upon the robed figure sat hunched in the pool of light. Mist coiled from between his lips, and frost laced her fingers as they brushed his cloak. Chasin’s head jerked up with a prolonged gasp for air, and she grasped his shoulder,

             “Chasin!” The Miraluka’s eyeless face slowly regained its traditional composure,

             “What has happened? Are the others alright?” Janni frowned,

             “Nothing happened, we were all just worried about…” she looked warily at the darker corners of the room, “what were you doing, master?” The young man paused for a moment, then motioned for her to sit opposite him,

             “I was meditating. I take every moment of quiet that I can, looking after you and the others.” His brief smile vanished, then, “I wanted to understand, to know why the Jedi could not foresee the clones’ betrayal. How  _Yoda_  could not foresee…” Janni heard that familiar note of pain in Chasin’s voice upon mention of his old mentor. “But the Force, it…it gave me insight that I do not like.” He pulled his ragged robe tighter about him, “I saw an ocean all around me, infinitely broad and smooth as a mirror. It felt…familiar, to be under the sun and the clear water, like it once was on Alpherides. But every time I looked down there was nothing, no reef, no fish, just…” Chasin let out a calming breath, “I understood then, the Force is not a coin, with one black side and one white. When I floated on the surface, the parts of the Code that once frustrated me became clear. We Jedi say ‘there is no passion, there is serenity’, and under the sun I realised its meaning. To be among the Light, the Ashla, is to embrace the Force without effort, to let it lift us, let its currents guide our thoughts and deeds. There is no need for desire nor passion.” The young man twisted his fingers about one another then, in what Janni realised was shame, “Yoda would have counselled patience, that I look no further and therein I realised the folly of the Jedi. Light illuminates, but Light also blinds. Ashla both opposes and embraces her brother Bogan, and so I turned my gaze to the depths. I let the water close over me, and I left the Light behind.” 

             The room was growing cold again as Janni listened, “I saw my own light around me, a spark in the immense void. Felt the weight of the ocean, of the Force, upon me. I felt it squeeze the breath from my lungs, the blood from my limbs, made me fight just to stay whole, and I understood something of the Sith as well. To live in the darkness, one must seize the Force, bend it to one’s will. But one does not lightly compel the sea, and so they must fight, struggle,  _want_ , with every breath.” Chasin’s tone began to grow distant, speaking less to Janni with every syllable, “The deeper you go, the more the water weighs upon you, the harder you must fight, as it tries to crush you. I began to…hear things, in the deep. Voices, speaking old words,  _terrible_  words. I felt things moving, circling. Things that should not be, but once were, long ago…” Frost was spreading across the walls now, Janni recoiled in horror as icy water began to trickle from the corners of Chasin’s mouth,

             “Master, what is happening? What are you doing?”

             “…I felt a presence, old,  _hungry_. It  _hated_ every strand of light in my soul, every fibre of my body. It hated the water around it, it hated the gnawing hunger, it hated the Force and itself most of all!” Tears were sliding down Janni’s cheeks now as Chasin’s body jerked, his fingers scrabbling at the bare floor-plating, “I saw a white face! With eyes that devoured the light!” The Miraluka convulsed one last time before collapsing backwards. Janni sat stone-still, until the sprawled form rolled over and, to her shock, began to sob. Broken sentences made their way into the quiet, “I never thought…that a being could feel such hatred without tearing itself apart, I…” Chasin gulped in some of the frigid air, “I felt as if I were being flayed, reduced to nothing and I was so afraid…” A gentle hand did not still his trembling shoulders, “It knew I was weak, a little fish that had swum too deep, who thought itself cleverer than its masters.” A deep sigh gusted from him, “But, through my errors, Janni, you may learn caution. We can ill afford to succumb to hubris now.” Janni squeezed his shoulders tight, and they sat beside one another for some time. “Sorry if I frightened you, by the way, I just…”

             “…Needed someone there?” He nodded, “Well you’re stuck with us, master, so that won’t be a problem.” A smile flickered briefly on his tanned face,

             “Good to know. Now, enough terror for today,” Chasin heaved himself to his feet and shook his sodden robes in disgust, “These will take forever to dry out, why don’t we go for skewers in Lower Uscru, I’m starving.”

 

\--

 

' **When All You Have is a Lightsabre** '

The only warning the kidnappers had was the subtle crackle of an electromagnetic pulse as it otherwise noiselessly destroyed the base’s surveillance network. The assembled miscreants turned as one to the doors as they parted. The slight frame of Chasin ni Tandelar elicited confusion more than fear, and Ghoratt rose from his chair with a false smile of greeting. His opening query, however, was cut short as Chasin pressed a sequence into the panel behind his back and severed the room from the energy grid. Blackness flooded from every corner, enveloping the assembled thugs for a few confusing moments. Then the cyan light washed over them, and they began to die. Blaster fire spat into the shadows around the whirling energy-blade to no avail, and the criminals howled as they were riven apart, impaled or decapitated. For Chasin had no need of light in this most unsavoury task. The sabre danced back and forth until the last scream was cut short and it stopped, the blue-green blade shining but a few inches from Ghoratt’s neck. In the silence that followed, the lights flickered back on and the Besalisk saw Chasin still stood in the doorway. He had always been more skilled in the Force than with a lightsabre. The blade hovered in the same threatening manner as the youth slowly advanced. Slow not out of caution, but in the manner of a glacier, wherein none could doubt the…certainty, of its passage.

                But Ghoratt still wore the smile that so often suggested he knew something no-one else did, and a single button-press deployed two auto-turrets from the floor before his desk. But the expected carnage never unfolded, as Chasin gestured calmly at the weapons, which promptly folded themselves into neat spheres of scrap with the scream of tortured metal. Ghoratt was no longer smiling as Chasin reached his desk, gently took hold of the lightsabre and moved it aside. Then, in a tone Ghoratt never expected from the lad, he demanded,

                “Where are they?” Three short words that hit Ghoratt like a sliver of ice to the chest, a feeling matched only by the coldness in Chasin’s voice. Ghoratt made the mistake of trying intimidation,

                “If you have misplaced whatever trash you drag around, it is no business of mine. Though the Imperial authorities will no doubt be interested to hear of a  _Jedi_  slaughtering a dozen legitimate businessmen.” Chasin’s face never moved, but Ghoratt felt an unseen pressure seize his head, and then slam it with considerable force into the surface of his desk,

                “I will ask a second time, Ghoratt, and there  _will not_  be a third.  _Where are they?!_ ” The Besalisk merely laughed,

                “You think a bloody face will break me, boy? I’m not going to cross the Empire because of  _your_ threats! Try one of those mind tricks, I hear it’s an interesting thing to experience.” The boy’s lips thinned in suppressed rage,

                “A Jedi is more than just their lightsabre, Ghoratt. There is the Force. There is the  _Code_. But at this moment…” Chasin stabbed his lightsabre down into the desk until a few scant inches of glowing light remained visible. Strips of the metal surface leapt up to pin down two of Ghoratt’s arms, “the lightsabre is all I have.” Chasin then reached up and removed his mechanic’s goggles, exposing the pale, flawless skin where a Human would have eyes. “ _I will not ask a third time._ ” Then he dragged the sabre through the desk, there was a brief hiss of charring flesh followed by Ghoratt’s bellow of pain. The Besalisk blinked away tears and glared defiantly at the Miraluka,

                “One hand is nothing compared to the Empire’s punishment for aiding Jedi! I hope you have the stomach to carry on, whelp.” Chasin flinched, and then leaned a little closer,

                “Ghoratt, if I already knew where to look,  _you would never have seen me coming_. But, as it stands…” the energy blade began to burn its way through the desk towards Ghoratt’s second pinned hand, “…you still haven’t answered my question.” The lightsabre never ceased its progress and the hiss of melting metal could not completely drown out the Besalisk’s ragged breathing. The horrible twisted grimace the lad wore never wavered as the blade met living flesh. Ghoratt howled and writhed as the blade slowly ate through his wrist with a revolting crackling noise. At the halfway point, Chasin relinquished his grip on the handle and stood back for a moment with his arms folded, holding the sabre in place with the Force. Ghoratt was screaming in earnest now, his every agony-induced spasm only mauling his wrist further,

                “Stop!” He cried out, “please!”

                “I still don’t have a location, Ghoratt, and you still have  _two hands_   _left_.” Chasin reached forward and finished the cut, the metal strips uncoiled and Ghoratt snatched back his wounded arms. But he was again assaulted by the Force, pinned back in his chair. Then his upper arms were dragged from behind his back and slammed onto the desk. The strips coiled back into place. Once again the lightsabre raked steadily towards the pinned arms, “By the Ashla, Ghoratt, tell me where you took the Padawans or I will leave you with nothing but a brain to think and a tongue to speak the words I want to hear!” Though half delirious with pain, the Besalisk managed to choke out a query,

                “These brats mean this much to you?” A note of a different kind of pain coloured Chasin’s reply,

                “If not for them, all that I have done, all of  _this_ , has been for nothing! I will not suffer your greed to bring them to harm!” The sabre inched ever closer, until it began to sear the sleeve on Ghoratt’s right wrist, and then the flesh beneath. Again, Chasin left the sabre at the halfway point, waiting this time for a full minute before the Besalisk finally broke down,

                “Level 2103! Straza Dock, sector twelve!” Chasin deactivated the lightsabre and reached for his wearable tablet,

                “Access surveillance in that sector, Sona, are the kids there?” The AI paused, checking,

                “Confirmed, Master Tandelar, though they are under heavy guard and awaiting the arrival of an Inquisitor. I recommend haste.” Chasin clipped his lightsabre to his belt, and looked back to the ashen-faced Ghoratt,

                “You have my thanks, Ghoratt,” the Miraluka then swung his pistol around and pulled the trigger. Ghoratt slumped dead over his desk without a sound “Sona, this base has a purge function does it not?”

                “Correct, Master Tandelar,” Chasin was sprinting before he even reached the door,

                “Soon as we’re out, set it off, and wipe the security feeds that still work. We don’t need the Empire sniffing around here later.” As he vaulted into his bike’s pilot seat, Chasin heard the purge activate and mused briefly on what had transpired within those walls. He had been angry, yes, and afraid, but the Dark Side had never once called out to him. Janni’s warning rang in his mind as it so often did, _‘what happens to us if you become the very thing we’re hiding from?_ ’ He wouldn’t fall that far, he wouldn’t make Skywalker’s mistake, they had need of him still.


End file.
